To save battery power, laptops and other computing devices may turn off an associated display screen and to into a suspended mode, or power down, after a predetermined amount of time being idle. However, just because a user is not interacting with a computing device does not mean that the device is “idle.” For example, the user may merely be reading lengthy content of a document or webpage displayed on the device. In this case, turning off or lowering the brightness of the display screen may annoy the user. Alternatively, when the device is truly not being used, the device or components thereof may not need to be operating at full power.